Category: Happiness

What Honky-Tonk Women Want

I’d love to have a deep red living room with dark built in bookshelves and a big open wall to hang this huge, awesome Alan McDonald portrait on, but, alas, I don’t. Though “dream apartment” is always on my wishlist, here are a few things that *someone* might consider getting instead to help maintain the lifestyle of the honky tonk woman. After all, we’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers. I won’t call it a gift guide if you don’t call it a comeback. Show me the way to the next whisky bar.

Heart this print from New York-based artist Jon Contino

Need Gillian Welch’s wonderful newish album, The Harrow and the Harvest, which is just as good on the indian summer open road as it is nesting in the winterdark.

Covet His/Hers/Ours Decanter set from Brooklyn’s own Love and Victory. You can also get His/His or Hers/Hers, or, if you’re like me and my “Three’s Company”, whiskey-loving roommates ca. 2006: Hers/Hers/His.

Crave raw forged steel trinkets that are as brutishly lovely as they are useful from CXXVI. Image from the divine goldust woodsmaiden.Want to live inside the cover of this record (get us a copy? good luck finding it- listen here, a gift from the fabulous Berlin Beatet Bestes). Or if you’re feeling really generous- perhaps a new accordion. Here are a few that look promising from Accordion Heaven.

Just Saying.

Fine Feathered Tree

We put our little city Christmas tree up late last week, and it’s been a source of constant joy to me since. The night we put it up, I had the girls over for Christmas Crafts (more on that later), and after a long boozy vegetarian dinner (for Smills the yogi) followed by the cracking open of the bottle of grappa I brought back from Italy, we sat in the glow of the tree through the wee hours and talked of the future and the past and of our little and not so little dreams. It was all so very wonderful. My absolute favorite part of the tree are all of the little birds, coming from all over my history to nest in the tree, feather by feather.

Thanks to Meags for the first picture of my tree, lovingly taken during her visit this weekend (we hugged each other with six of our friendship-octopus legs to make sure that we had two legs each free for champagne, of course).

Murray’s Extravaganza

When Rachel tells you that one of her oldest friends left his boring/unfullfilling/perhaps-soon-to-be-nonexistant white collar job to become a cheese monk at Murray’s, and that you should come over for his hand-picked cheese’n’charcuterie selections, run, don’t walk- first to the wine store and then- over to Rachel and Nate’s brand new Brooklyn digs to partake. Figs and elastic waist pants recommended.

Because it’s worth it


What if you had a pen name?
I would call myself “Sheldon Conch”

Sweetheart sent me a link to this AH-MAZING Marcel the Shell with Shoes On sequel while I was traveling with no internet, so I’ve been saving watching it… until last night. Marcel seems so much more empowered these days, it must be all of the love (we all love you Marcel).

And in case you missed the first installment of Marcel, here it is.

Happy Halloween!


Tonight we’re going to be marching in the 39th Annual Village Halloween Parade, singing into megaphones with our dear friends, the awesome boys of No Small Money Brass Band. Here they are, marching in the parade in 2009. It’s going to be almost as good as candy! And, BONUS, since I’m a grownup I can also have as much candy as I want all the time. Happy Halloween!

Childlike Wonder pt. 1

I’m not sure if it’s on purpose, coming from me- if I’m drawing a feeling of awe out of the air like a lightning rod or if there has been extra beauty latent in the world as of late and I’m drawn to it like a open-mouthed moth to a flame of awesomeness. Either way, I really feel like the past few weeks have been full of wonder. This is a hard thing to come by, so needless to say it’s been pretty great. Is it that we’re too tired usually to look around? Is it that the world is extra-lovely when it tilts its orbit to squeeze the last bit out of fall? I went to Dumbo to see the Creators Project and poke around and I simply could not get over how beautiful everything was. It was ever so marvelous a feeling.

Tea Party of One

One of my favorite things about the chillying weather (despite frequent deluges, this past week must be one of the most beautimous in New York history… also helps that Sweetheart and I have been listening to Billie Holliday on repeat) is the transition from cold brew coffee back to plain old dark and delicious hot coffee. But despite my militant affection for coffee, there’s just something about late autumn afternoons that seems to require tea. It’s such a lovely little ritual- the loose leaf Hediard that Maman and I got in Paris (and that Sweetheart replenishes from McNulty’s), the old copper kettle, with its real throaty whistle, the time and steep. Just a little honey for me, always.

Gone to Lebanon

My mama was in town all last week and we had a time. When we weren’t covered in paint or dust we were covered in flour and wine and good long hugs. Just as things should be. You’ll have to wait a minute for the before/after of all the projects we tackled… but first! I must tell about the Kitchen Garden Cooking School. This was the theoretical “excuse” of her visit, that she would come up and we would meet our dear old friends (a mother and daughter just as prone to nesting and cocktails as we, of course) and take a short class on Lebanese cooking. Glorious. The air was gilded, the kitchen was warm and bright, and the lions share of the ingredients came directly from the garden. Things I didn’t know about before: sumac (a deep red powder that lends a lemony sprinkle), pomegranate molasses (deep, dark, tart, sweet, the best new discovery since Maggi Seasoning, and available at Sahadi’s on Atlantic avenue), and, of course, how to make pitas from scratch:We left with full bellies and a packet of recipes- some that will become favorites, some that may never be attempted again- my favorite? Muhammara. This roasted red pepper dip is not only a total revelation of deliciousness, it’s made from ingredients that can simply lie in wait in the pantry, ready to ambush a blitzkrieg of unexpected dinner guests.

Muhammara

2 roasted red peppers (from the jar is just fine)
1 cup walnuts
½ cup fine bread crumbs, crackers or panko
1 T lemon juice
2 T pomegranate molasses
1 tsp dried Aleppo pepper or hot paprika
¼ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp sugar
2 T olive oil

In a food processor, puree all of the ingredients except the olive oil until completely combined and creamy.  Add the olive oil in a thin stream.  Serve at room temperature. Marvel at the skill and ease with which you entertain.

(from Sheila McDuffie and the Kitchen Garden Cooking School)

 

ps. don’t all New Yorkers wish their kitchen felt like this? O! The Open Shelves! O! The TWO sinks! O me O my!

Blue Bottle Coffee

Even though summer is lingering as we always wish it would, confusing trees whose leaves blushed too early, thank goodness the transition from iced cold brew to hot-cha-cha coffee is still imminent. Jocie and I met for a brisk picnic lunch on The Highline and she, with a little persuasion, gave me an ad hoc architectural walking tour (awesome!). En route, we decided that if we were going to discuss Highline Architecture 101 (encompassing topics as diverse as “barrier elements mirror forms of both the in situ natural and industrial” and/or “life/work integration of public and private spaces”) that we definitely needed some coffee. ASAP. For my own life/work integration, I sort of, really, very much need, want, and have to have at least one of these single cup fast-as-lightning drip brewers from Blue Bottle Coffee. All I need is gravity and (in this case) the rarefied sideways light of the Highline over 10th avenue. Simple as that.